Local unemployment again on the decline

The unemployment rate for Leavenworth County fell again in November 2012, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday.

Comment

By Tim Linn

The Leavenworth Times - Leavenworth, KS

By Tim Linn

Posted Jan. 9, 2013 at 7:00 AM

By Tim Linn

Posted Jan. 9, 2013 at 7:00 AM

Leavenworth

The unemployment rate for Leavenworth County fell again in November 2012, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday.
The decline was not dramatic measured month-over-month, data shows — the actual rate here fell from 6.1 percent in October 2012 to 6 percent in November.
The unemployment rate for the same period in the United States was 7.4 percent. The respective rates for Kansas and Missouri were 5.2 and 6.4 percent.
But Linda Nickisch, an economist from the BLS in Kansas City, said comparing from month to month gives only a partial view of larger trends. The unemployment rate for Leavenworth County, for example, has fallen to 6 in November 2012 from 7.3 percent at the same time a year before.
“We have seen a decline in the unemployment for all of those counties,” around Kansas City, she said.
In fact, Nickisch said of the 372 metropolitan areas across the nation singled out for individual analysis, 322 of them are experiencing a downward trend in the unemployment rate.
She said the unemployment rate, however, is not the complete picture of the employment situation in the county, the region or the nation. She said the number of jobs added, which is derived from an employer survey as opposed to the household survey that results in the unemployment rate, gives the other side of the picture.
Participation in the labor force has been relatively consistent over the last year, Nickisch said. The Kansas City metropolitan area added 4,700 between November 2011 and November 2012, for a growth of about .3 percent.
Some “supersectors” of the economy grew faster, including professional and business services, in which 7,300 jobs were added over the year for a growth of 4.7 percent.
“That rate of addition of jobs is actually faster than the national,” Nickisch said.